The Motion that Won the Stay

The Supreme Court’s decision to put a stay on EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan took nearly everyone by surprise. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had already scheduled an expedited review of the Power Plan, and, as the New York Times observed, “the Supreme Court had never before granted a request to halt a regulation before review by a federal appeals court.”

The stay is a major setback for the global warming movement. The Power Plan is President Obama’s signature domestic climate policy as well as the sheet anchor of his emission-reduction pledge to the United Nations in the Paris climate treaty negotiations. The stay not only puts the Plan on ice pending final resolution of complex litigation on the merits, a process that could take years, it also indicates that five justices have serious doubts about the Plan’s legality.

The usual suspects were quick to condemn the stay as a partisan decision, a product of coal-fired, oil-fueled Republican politics. A typical Orwellian inversion by rank partisans who would never admit, no matter how overwhelming the evidence, that the Power Plan is an unlawful power grab.

Any open-minded person who actually reads the motion to stay filed by West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma and 26 other States can see that the underdog won fair and square. Judge for yourself. Click here to read the motion that won the stay.